phistle

Updated: June 12, 2025

"Ciss-s-s phistle phut-snap," chorused the juveniles, who had been disturbed by their mamma, treading upon one, scratching another on the side of the head, and giving number three such a crack with her wing that the little fellow was knocked out of the nest into an old sooty part of the chimney, and came back such a little guy that his mother hardly knew him.

George Manville Fenn - Featherland: How the Birds lived at Greenlawn